Recap: The Critical Play Lab Returns to Terminal City Tabletop Convention
For the second year in a row, the UBC Critical Play Lab (CPL) returned to Terminal City Tabletop Convention with a strong mix of play-based programming, community engagement, and a little bit of free swag. “Indigenous Game Design & Decolonial Play: Lessons from the Arctic Winter Games” CPL Saturday programming included a well-attended roundtable […]
Arctic Winter Games Artist Spotlight: Cole Pauls
The UBC Pop Culture Cluster, Critical Play Lab, and the Indigenous Comics Initiative will set out for Whitehorse, Yukon, on March 8, 2026 with a dozen Indigenous artists and a support team for the Arctic Winter Games. Here’s a spotlight on artist Cole Pauls.
Meet the Indigenous Comics Artists & Game Designers Headed to the Arctic Winter Games with the Pop Culture Cluster
The Pop Culture Cluster, with its partner project Visual Storytelling in the Indigenous North, are traveling to the Yukon with six Indigenous comics artists and three Indigenous game designers to the 2026 Arctic Winter Games (AWG) to document and create AWG-inspired artworks.
Field Trip Recap: Critical Play Lab Takes on asses.masses
On Sunday, November 16th, Critical Play Lab Director Biz Nijdam and two Critical Play Fellows set out on an epic, joy-filled adventure to Vancouver Island for Impulse Theatre’s production of asses.masses by Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim. After the panicked search of multiple inboxes for the e-tickets and a little too much caffeine, the team […]
Video Games and the Pornography of Death (Nov. 26 @ 12 PM + Lunch)
The Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice Noted Scholars Series and Critical Play Lab present: Video Games and the Pornography of Death with Dr. Amanda Phillips WHEN & WHERE Wednesday, November 26th, 12-1pm Buchanan Tower, Room 323 Please RSVP below in advance A light lunch will be served at 1:00 PM Amanda […]
Viking Games Night Recap
Viking Games Night was immensely successful! With over 30 attendees, last Wednesday we saw students and faculty from different disciplines across UBC gathered for a fun night of learning more about, and how to play ‘Viking Board Games.’ Games played were, Tablut or tafl and Merels, also known as Nine Men’s Morris. A special thank […]
New Critical Play Lab Questions the Politics of Play
The Ubyssey recently interviewed Dr. Biz Nijdam about the UBC Pop Culture Cluster and its new Critical Play Lab, “an interdisciplinary forum and a constellation and collection of people from various disciplines across UBC and beyond” aimed at supporting critical play scholarship, game design, and practice.
A Critical Play Field Trip Recap: Mashing Up Art and Sport at League Nanaimo
On September 17, UBC visual art professors Germaine Koh and Damla Tamer boarded a ferry with 35 UBC students, including two fourth-year undergraduate visual art students and a few Critical Play fellows, and led the group on a field trip to Nanaimo Art Gallery to experience Koh’s exhibition League Nanaimo.
Re-Cap: Games and Social Justice Public Lecture Series (Winter 2025)
By on This winter, UBC’s Pop Culture Cluster hosted the Games and Social Justice Public Lecture Series, a series of weekly talks and workshops that brought together scholars, game designers, artists, and community organizers to explore how games—from digital video games to analog tabletop systems and tarot—can both reinforce and challenge systems of power. Spanning ten sessions […]
Project Recap: Tarot for Decolonization Event (March 20, 2025)
On March 20, 2025, the Tarot for Decolonization Project hosted a pilot workshop at UBC, co-led by Dr. Biz Nijdam (UBC) and Christopher Marmolejo (Indigenous Two-Spirit tarot practitioner and author of Red Tarot). This event was the first opportunity to test the project’s methods for teaching tarot as a means of decolonial education. The workshop […]